Dr. Sergio Bernardes presents a digital model of the T.R.R. Cobb House on Sunday, Nov. 19 at the Athens-Clarke County Library. (Photo/Audrey Hamm)
A guest uses a virtual reality headset to experience 3D digital replicas of historical Athens properties on Sunday, Nov. 19 at the Athens-Clarke County Library. (Photo/Audrey Hamm)
Dr. Sergio Bernardes presents a digital model of the T.R.R. Cobb House on Sunday, Nov. 19 at the Athens-Clarke County Library. (Photo/Audrey Hamm)
About 40 Athenians gathered for a presentation about 3D digital replicas of 1850s historic properties at the Athens-Clarke County Library on Sunday, Nov. 19.
Dr. Sergio Bernardes, associate director for the Center of Geospatial Research and director of the Disruptive Geospatial Technologies Laboratory, or DiGTL, at the University of Georgia, gave the presentation about various projects he and his team of university students have been working on.
Participants were then invited to utilize virtual reality headsets, laptops or iPads to further explore the models and experience for themselves.
A guest uses a virtual reality headset to experience 3D digital replicas of historical Athens properties on Sunday, Nov. 19 at the Athens-Clarke County Library. (Photo/Audrey Hamm)
“[It’s] the idea of bringing technologies into geospatial analysis and to different fields that don’t use those technologies and can benefit from the technologies. And one of the fields [is] history,” Bernardes said.
Since 2016, the laboratory has introduced technologies like drone-based remote sensing, digital 3D reconstruction, augmented and virtual reality and artificial intelligence to thousands of community members through similar events and educational courses, a press release said. One notable project mentioned in the presentation was the “Athens: Layers of Time” project.
The presentation highlighted the efforts to preserve the T.R.R. Cobb House, which is a museum and heritage center about Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, his family, and enslaved people, according to its website.
The T.R.R. Cobb House and the DiGTL have collaborated in an effort named the Cobb’s World initiative, a press release said. Sam Thomas, curator at the Cobb House, and Bernardes have been working together to expand interpretation of the historical site.
“Sam was inspired to reach out to the folks at the Disruptive Geospatial Technologies Lab at UGA after seeing their work on the Athens: Layers of Time project, and was very, very interested to see how they could help us expand our interpretation at the T.R.R. Cobb House,” Ashleigh Oatts, education coordinator of T.R.R. Cobb House, said.
With over 35 years of experience designing and implementing projects that use digital methods to represent one’s surroundings, Bernardes’ work explains location and time-related phenomena, a press release said.
“This expands on an existing way of thinking how to represent spatial data, maps [and] objects,” Bernardes said.
According to a press release, the process combines historical narratives, drone technologies and advanced 3D reconstruction methods.
The DiGTL uses drones to take hundreds of images at different angles around the site. Bernardes and his team will then collect the photos and measurements to make 3D models, using a technique called structure from motion.
However, Bernardes said people are utilizing this practice by just using their phones and other mobile devices, too. Additionally, he said the creation of such photorealistic objects and landscapes is a changing field with the development of artificial intelligence technologies.
Bernardes said the DiGTL ultimately uses technologies to “go back to the past” and recreate sites and properties based on “what we see now,” recreating the object so people can learn from it.
“We’re putting these products and ideas together to be used in the classroom,” Bernardes said.
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